Boy Charged in Plot to Storm School

Parents of several Ladera Vista Junior High School students kept them home Wednesday as Fullerton police maintained a heightened and visible presence on campus following the arrest of a 14-year-old boy who allegedly plotted to shoot his classmates.

The student, whose name is being withheld, was charged with solicitation to commit felony assault, according to Jim Tanizaki, spokesman for the Orange County district attorney’s office. He is scheduled for a detention hearing today.

The school followed its regular schedule Wednesday. Students went to class, stopping only to gawk while their principal and police officers answered questions from a throng of reporters.

The school normally has police officers on campus, but on Wednesday additional officers appeared throughout the day.

Before school began, Principal Carolyn Millikin was met by a small group of nervous parents standing outside her office. She told them that there was no reason to fear.

Barbara Tetzlaff withdrew her 12-year-old son from school anyway, shortly after 10 a.m.

“I just felt like I wanted to spend the day with him at home where we could discuss what had happened,” she said.

Her son, Robert, described the arrested youth as a good student who was popular on campus--unlike the outsiders who have generally been associated with campus threats.

“It’s too bad,” Robert said of the eighth-grader. “He hung out with the popular kids, and it seems like he had a good life. Now he’s messed it up.”

The youth’s arrest and criminal charges showed how seriously school and police officials take verbal threats in the wake of the Columbine High School shooting.

In that case, two students killed 12 students and a teacher at their Colorado school in April, then turned their guns on themselves. Although the Fullerton student told police he had only been trying to gain attention, the consequences of his comments to other students could be extensive.

The youth allegedly had asked other students to help him shoot up the school and inquired how to obtain guns, Fullerton Sgt. Joe Klein said. He also had mapped out on paper a plan of attack and escape route. But a search of the youth’s home Tuesday found no weapons.

“We live in a time where every threat, every single threat, has to be taken seriously,” Klein said. “It will take further investigation to determine what all of his motives really were, but we are not taking this lightly in any way.”

At district headquarters, school officials weighed the possible outcome for the youth’s behavior.

“It would seem like it might be something for which he could automatically be expelled,” said Ellen Fisher, coordinator of child welfare and attendance, “but the behavior has to meet all the tests of a particular education code section.

“No one is trying to underplay the seriousness of it, but this was a threat. What we have is a student who said things. Nothing, however, was found in his home, so we have to proceed very carefully.”

Should the boy eventually be returned to school, the district could face an outcry from concerned parents.

“I was not shocked when I heard,” said parent Rhonda Ray, who said that fighting at the school has been a problem. “I was afraid, but not shocked. But as for that boy coming back to the school? Absolutely not.”

Eighth-grader Stacy Cato, 13, who attended school Tuesday, shrugged off the incident, saying it was blown out of proportion.

“I don’t think it is a big deal because [he] wouldn’t do anything. I know him,” Stacy said.

The arrested youth’s parents are shocked, Klein said.

“This was a bad day for the parents, a very bad day,” he said. “But they have been cooperating fully with the police.”

In addition to seeking attention with his comments, Klein said, the youngster told police that he had been influenced by recently released accounts of home videos made by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine High School shooters.

“He made statements to the police that he wanted to pick up where Columbine left off,” Klein said. “He felt it would bring him notoriety.”

On tape, the two Littleton shooters bragged about the infamy that would follow their suicide and the massacre of their classmates. Hollywood directors would vie for the rights to their story, they said.

Principal Millikin expressed sorrow over the boy’s actions but satisfaction that other students warned authorities.

“This is a teachable moment now, and we’re going to use it,” she said. “I’ve asked the teachers to discuss with them how in cases like this they’re not breaking the student code by ratting someone out.”

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Times correspondent Luladey B. Tadesse contributed to this report.